Norwegian Tram CatThis was back in the day, when boys would get tangled in the tape from music cassettes as they frantically tried to record foreign rock music from banned radio stations. The entire city was traversed by a complicated network of tram lines. The trams were always yellow, with a white roof and white underbelly. They slugged through the streets like giant bugs, long twiggy antennae sending sparks off the electric lines. City gardeners would plant tuft between the tracks, and daisies would grow intermittently across them. As trams don't run on gasoline there was nothing to damage the tracks and the grass was always the colour of ripe Granny SmithNorwegian Tram Cat
The Japanese GhostsShe sits, straight backed and shivering, at a dimly lit table. She cradles a cup of coffee in one hand, the smell of caffeine permeating her head, making her dizzy and messing with her thoughts. Her fingertips rest on a sheet of paper. She strokes the words, carefully touching every line as she reads it, as if it were braille, as if touching it would make the words make more sense. She rubs her eyes and smears her mascara: panda eyes.The Japanese Ghosts
She puts the cup down and shuffles her papers. She takes a sip of coffee and leans back on her chair. She thinks about the stories Helen told her, the ghost stories. The way she told them as if she
StigmataLater, when asked, he could not have told you what happened, or why he'd done it. The decision was automatic, uncontrollable, like the beating of a heart or the changing of the seasons. The first time it happened was deep at night. He sat at his desk, hunched over, trying to stop the small print stop dancing around the page as he tried reading it. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He scratched his ear. He put his glasses back on and tried to read again.Stigmata
The entire surface of the table was covered in books, drawings, papers and notes. It was as though a tornado had plundered a library and vomited its contents on the arc
Musings On A Modern WorldFifty bucks can buy you sex Four buttons undone, polished blond hair A kiss with eyes open, Hand held with contempt Sigh faked out of duty What can you do with this beauty? When passion is a business deal You can't believe that love is real.Musings On A Modern World
Take seven roses, buy some lust. The same cheap deal, financial steal (But with a bit more class) Four buttons undone at the end of a date A good-night kiss For your virginal miss It's good in terms of to-day No-one has feelings anyway.
But take two words, A butterfly kiss, romantic bliss, &
tape player.-tape player.
this marriage is missing its sphenoid bone, it is radio without music, just maybe the sound of you pressing your forehead to the window and washing your hands until the skin peels off and your fingernails drip like blood
you face demons in the shower, your reflection in the bathroom mirror a steam of colour, it is hard for either of you to tell if you are a man or a woman or nothing at all
each petal unfolds to reveal a missing tooth she pried from your mouth, cassette tape like dry veins or a pair of crow's wings.
for the wedding anniversa
| The twisted mind grows ever more perverse in absence of an outlet. I take the things I feel, or notice other people feeling, and amplify them by a thousand, twisting reality into a caricature. Through a stoke of ink, or a stoke of a key, the unsettling can become horrifying - the pretty transform into an unimaginable beauty. In writing, my words grow primitive minds. They scurry across the page like insects, obeying their own arbitrary and confusing rules, building kingdoms and geometric patterns. I am no more in command of my words than I, ultimately, am of my breathing. |
